Legal Ethics Roundup: Messy Mexico Judicial Elections, Angry Clients, Pro Bono For DOJ, Bondi Complaint & More

Ed. note: Please welcome Renee Knake Jefferson back to the pages of Above the Law. Subscribe to her Substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, here.

Welcome to what captivates, haunts, inspires, and surprises me every week in the world of legal ethics.

Happy Monday!

It was a busy week for me, both a beginning and an end. I’m teaching two summer courses, so it was the start of the semester for students in my Professional Responsibility course and my Leadership, Law, and Power writing seminar. (A special welcome to students joining us here at the Roundup!) It was also the end of the school year for my daughter, celebrated with a tennis banquet and yearbook banquet. She’s officially a senior in high school. Sigh. I know I’ve written it here before, but to quote Mary Louise Kelly: “It. Goes. So. Fast.” In other personal news, I learned last week that I’ve been appointed to a one-year term on the American Bar Association Center for Innovation Governing Council. I was a reporter for the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, which recommended the creation of the Center for Innovation back in 2016, and I’m looking forward to serving in this new role.

And now for your headlines.

Highlights from Last Week – Top Ten Headlines

#1 “The Law Firms That Appeased Trump—and Angered Their Clients.” From the Wall Street Journal: “Support for the law firms that didn’t make deals has been growing inside the offices of corporate executives. At least 11 big companies are moving work away from law firms that settled with the administration or are giving—or intend to give—more business to firms that have been targeted but refused to strike deals, according to general counsels at those companies and other people familiar with those decisions. Among them are technology giant Oracle, investment bank Morgan Stanley, an airline and a pharmaceutical company. Microsoft expressed reservations about working with a firm that struck a deal, and another such firm stopped representing McDonald’s in a case a few months before a scheduled trial. In interviews, general counsels expressed concern about whether they could trust law firms that struck deals to fight for them in court and in negotiating big deals if they weren’t willing to stand up for themselves against Trump.” Read more here (gift link).

#2 “The Justice Crisis Nobody’s Talking About, And How Innovation Can Save Legal Aid.” From the Law Droid Manifesto Substack: “Last Friday, while most of us were wrapping up our workweek, the White House quietly proposed something that should have made headlines everywhere: the complete elimination of the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). For those of you who may be unfamiliar, LSC was established by Congress in 1974 and represents the federal government’s primary commitment to ensuring legal representation for Americans who can’t afford it. For 51 years, through Republican and Democratic administrations, it has survived; a testament to the bipartisan belief that justice shouldn’t depend on wealth. So, this isn’t just another budget cut. It’s a decision that would strip legal protections from millions of Americans, including domestic violence survivors, veterans, and nearly a million children.” Read more here.

#3 “Election Observers Voice Serious Concerns About Mexico’s Contentious Judicial Elections.” From the Washington Post: “Abysmal voter turnout, political polarization and voting ‘cheat sheets’ were among the reasons an observation mission for Mexico’s historic judicial elections on Friday issued a recommendation to other countries in the region: don’t try this at home. In their report, the electoral mission from the Organization of American States said the June 1 election was ‘extremely complex’ and ‘polarizing,’ and was marked by a ‘widespread lack of awareness’ among voters about what they were voting for and who the thousands of candidates were. Given the findings, the mission concluded that ‘it does not recommend this model of judge selection be replicated in other countries in the region.’ In Sunday’s vote, Mexicans elected 881 federal judges, including a new Supreme Court, and another 1,800 state judges as part of a complete overhaul of the judiciary. The process was carried out following a constitutional reform approved last year by a Congress with a ruling-party majority. The overhaul fueled protests and criticism within Mexico and by the U.S. and Canadian governments, which warned of a potential loss of judicial independence and the politicization of justice in Mexico.” Read more here (gift link).

#4 “We Must Close the Loophole Helping Judges Evade Accountability.” An op-ed from Aliza Shatzman (Legal Accountability Project) in Bloomberg Law: “Berating judicial law clerks as ‘stupid’ and ‘useless’ and demeaning them for perceived mistakes. Forcing them to watch pornography. Firing them for no stated reason. Concealing a neurological condition that prevents a judge from serving. In each instance of judicial misconduct over the past decade, these perpetrators retired or resigned from judicial service without facing discipline—their reputations, pensions, and legal careers intact. Fortunately, a new bill, the Transparency and Responsibility in Upholding Standards in the Judiciary Act, would close the disturbing legal loophole that allows judges to step down to evade accountability for misconduct.” Read more here. (Full disclosure: I am a member of the Legal Accountability Project’s Advisory Board).

#5 “DOJ Alumni Aid Group Launches Pro Bono Legal Network.” From Law360: “Justice Connection, a group founded by former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys in response to the Trump administration’s ongoing purge of the department, has launched a pro bono legal network to represent DOJ attorneys being ‘unfairly targeted’ by the Trump administration.” Read more here.

#6 “Erin Brockovich Lawyer and ‘Real Housewives’ Husband Gets 7 Years in Prison for Embezzlement.” From the New York Times: “Tom Girardi, a former high-profile trial lawyer known for winning a record settlement for the environmental activist Erin Brockovich, was sentenced on Tuesday to more than seven years in prison for embezzling tens of millions of dollars of his clients’ settlement money. In addition to receiving an 87-month prison term, Mr. Girardi, 86, of Seal Beach, Calif., who was convicted in August of four counts of wire fraud, was ordered by Judge Josephine L. Staton of U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to pay more than $2.3 million in fines and restitution.” Read more here (gift link).

#7 “Is the American Bar Association’s Accreditation Monopoly About to End?” An op-ed from Jonathan Adler (Case Western) in the Civitas Outlook: “The American Bar Association (ABA) is the nation’s largest lawyers’ organization. While representing only a small fraction of lawyers, it is also the sole accrediting body for law schools. Whereas universities generally are accredited by regional accrediting organizations, the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar is the only game in town. Federal student loans are only available to accredited institutions, and the vast majority of states require a degree from an ABA-accredited school to take the bar exam. Could this soon change? As the cost of legal education continues to rise and technological changes threaten to transform the delivery of legal services, the ABA’s de facto monopoly on legal accreditation is under siege. Texas and Florida, the states with the third and fourth-most lawyers in the country, are both considering whether to stop requiring bar applicants to have attended an ABA-accredited school.” Read more here.

#8 “Pam Bondi Accused of ‘Serious Misconduct’ in Florida Bar Complaint.” From Newsweek: “US Attorney General Pam Bondi has been accused of ‘serious professional misconduct’ in an ethics complaint filed with the Florida Bar, signed by 70 people. The signatories include liberal and moderate-leaning law professors, attorneys, and retired chief justices of the Florida Supreme Court. They accused Bondi of misconduct that ‘threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice.’” Read more here.

#9 “Foley & Lardner Says Palestine Support Didn’t Doom Job Offer.” From Law360: “Foley & Lardner LLP asked an Illinois federal judge Wednesday for an early win in a bias suit from a former summer associate who claims that the firm pulled a job offer because of her public support for the Palestinian people, arguing that the rescission did not occur because she was an Arab Muslim but rather because her statements about Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel ‘not only violated the firm’s core values, but also constituted a display of incredibly poor judgment.’” Read more here.

#10 “Attorney Discipline Moves Into Public Eye.” From Bloomberg Law: “Most attorney disciplinary complaints come from people with personal knowledge of the lawyer’s conduct, but a recent rise in filings based on public information has stirred up questions about standing, the public interest, confidentiality, and regulators’ handling of duplicate filings. Speaking May 30 at the American Bar Association’s 50th National Conference on Professional Responsibility, Renee Knake Jefferson, Professor of Law at the University of Houston, observed that nonprofit advocacy groups such as Fix the Court and The 65 Project have played a role in the increased number of public complaints. She said that approximately 30 US jurisdictions allow these kinds of complaints.” Read more here.

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Renee Knake Jefferson holds the endowed Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics and is a Professor of Law at the University of Houston. Check out more of her writing at the Legal Ethics Roundup(Opens in a new window). Find her on X (formerly Twitter) at @reneeknake(Opens in a new window) or Bluesky at legalethics.bsky.social(Opens in a new window). 

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